Voices
by Ardwynna Morrigu
Summary: [AU] The players in a sad story speak about what Sephiroth did to Aerith.
1. Sephiroth

**Disclaimer: **Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix. No profit is made from this work.

**Warning:** Reference to violent assault.

**Voices**

**Sephiroth**

Victory is near. Meteor looms close. It will come soon to erase everything on this miserable Planet. Everything but me. I will remain. I will triumph. I will have power beyond imagining. I will reshape this earth as I see fit.

How utterly absurd at this point there is still someone trying to stop me. Why don't these worms give it up? They have lost. The fire burning above them should be proof enough. Yet in their ignorant little hopes they still think they will survive. What can they do to stop me?

The puppet is coming. He wants me gone, erased from the earth. His tiny little mind is overflowing with rage. It is amusing now, playing with him while my Meteor draws nearer. It is something to pass the time. I give him dreams and images. I play on his greatest fears. I make sure his worst nightmares stay with him, always.

I might be making him more furious this way, but what can he do about it? Pitiful rat. It's a wonder he can swing that ridiculous sword he carries. His body is no longer entirely his own. His mind is a fractured thing. As long as he lives, he will be my puppet.

He is coming. Not for me, really, though that is how this started. No, he's really coming for her. I stole her away from him and he's angry. Ignorant fool. There are bigger things at stake now. Like his own life. Humans are so ridiculous.

What sensible being would get so worked up over a girl he can never have? He does not even realize that his fury gives me the perfect opening into his mind. I know what he fears most. I show it to him. I know what makes him burn. I feed him sights and sounds of her. I make him watch over and over and sit back to watch him spin.

What is it that is so wonderful about women anyway? They are so easily discarded once they have served their purpose. What is it that he finds so fascinating about her? She is nothing, less than nothing. A spineless scion of Mother's ancient enemy. Nothing but a tool to further my grip on the puppet.

I do not understand why she matters so much to him, even now, but it does not matter. He cares too much, in that human way. Another's suffering causes him pain. It makes him weak. He can think of nothing else but her. It will be his downfall. I took her from him and watched him scream. Even now he cries out at the thought of it.

I love the taste of pain.


	2. Cloud

**Cloud**

I was afraid she was dead. We all were. Now I almost wish he had killed her.

One minute Aerith was there, praying and smiling up at me in the light. I was so relieved to see her. We had searched for so long, traveled nearly halfway around the world.

I was afraid of what things would be like between us when we did find her. I had hurt her so badly the last time I had seen her. I still see it at night. She lies helpless on the ground. My fists fly down. There is a horrible crunching sound as my knuckles reach her face. It sickens me even in sleep. Every time, I keep willing it to stop, but it just keeps coming, that sound and her cries. It's one of the better dreams I have these days.

But at that altar, when I approached, she smiled, _smiled _at me. And I knew she could see how sorry I was for what I'd done. All the weeks of looking and running and worrying just melted away with that smile.

Then _he _took her from us. From me. I thought it was terrible then, what he did at the altar. I can't forget it, the black shadow coming down, the arm that snaked around her waist, how roughly he pulled her off the ground, the look on her face…It's all burned into my memory, sharing that nightmare space with the bruises I put on her.

We followed him as fast as we could, but he toyed with us, with me. He drew me in, showed me only glimpses that gave me hope that she was still alive. I thought I could find her. He played me like he had before. What was I thinking? I couldn't help her. He tossed me out of that crater like a rag doll. By the time I came to, it was too late. He had sealed the dome.

I barely slept after that. Every night I saw it. Little flashes of her. I thought I'd lost any faith in the gods a long time ago, but I prayed like crazy that it wasn't real. I knew it couldn't be. It was just another of his games to hurt me. He liked that.

Gods, I was so stupid.

When the crater opened up and I found him, there was nothing to it, I thought. I was stronger. I was driven. I was ready. The truth is I barely remember finishing him off. The whole time, all I could think about was finding her.

I don't remember much of the tunnels I ran through to find her. Everything passed in a blur. The ghost image of his final smirk haunted me even though I had killed him moments before. I didn't really believe that any of what I had seen was real until I found her.

I suppose by then, the weeks of nightmares had worn out the shock. The world was shaking all around me and all I could do was stare at her. She was so pale in the dirt, I was sure she was dead. I hoped she was.

I'd never seen a body that battered and still living. She was cut and bruised, lying in a pool of blood and dirt. Her wrists were tied with rags that might have been her own dress at one point.

Then she breathed. It was a shallow thing, but I saw it. I could barely even think. I vaguely recall wishing that I had a coat of some sort to cover her.

The stone was shaking all around us so I couldn't stop to think. I scooped her up and ran. She was so limp in my arms, so limp. She didn't cry out. She never even woke up the whole time I was running. Rocks rained down around us. Something crazy was going on up above us. There was a sound like a loud groan filling the crater. I didn't even care.

All I could think about was getting her out of there. She needed a doctor. She needed to be warm. I kept hoping that her injuries didn't go further than what I could see. I kept hoping she would wake up soon and it would be okay. I kept hoping it was all just some new, terrible dream. I kept running and all the while I could feel her wilting in my arms. The dampness from her body soaked through my shirt. Some of it was blood.

I don't remember who helped me up or who dragged me onboard the Highwind. All I remember is how everyone froze when they saw her.

I knew I'd had a plan when I picked her off the ground. It just disappeared when I saw their faces. She seemed so heavy in my arms and I didn't know what to do with her.

Vincent got it together first. I don't suppose anyone else could have. He came over and put his red cloak over her. I was so glad for that. I could breathe again. It was like once it was covered, once I didn't have to look at what had been done to her, it was all right. It would just go away.

I remember trying to say something to them but nothing would come out. Vincent wouldn't even look at me. Somebody called out to bring her inside. I tried to move but I just could not do it anymore. Vincent took her from me before I fell.

I don't know how long the rest of them stayed outside. Nobody wanted to move, to go in and see if she was okay. Maybe they think she can't be okay.

She's still inside now. Someone came out to tell me they got a doctor for her. I can't remember who it was. I can't remember how long ago. I should go in there, I know. But I can't. I can't go in there now. I don't think I could take it. It's easier out here where I don't have to look at her and see her that way. I can't go in there. I don't want to see that again.

But I will.

Every night.

In my sleep.


	3. Tifa

**Tifa**

When Cloud climbed over the railing, there was nothing I could say, really. He slid her off his shoulder and just held her there. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He looked an inch away from crying.

I would have been too if I had been the one holding her. It was hard to believe that naked, broken thing was my friend. I could hardly recognize her. For a while I thought she was dead, that Cloud had just brought the body back so we could give her the proper honors, bring her back to her mother.

Then she breathed. It was a nasty, gasping, rattling sound. She was injured inside and out. A dark stain was fanning out across Cloud's shirt. It took a while to sink in and become clear to me.

It was something I hoped I would never see a friend go through. You learn to recognize these things in the slums. Life is rough there. Girls learn how to take care of themselves, which alleys to avoid, how to look out for one another, how to take care of one another if something…goes wrong.

I've seen my fair share of it. A few times, more than I would have liked, my bar turned into an emergency room. I guess it was some kind of haven for the girls who came to me, bleeding and broken and cringing from male presence. I did what I could for them. I know the drill now. Call the doctor, or patch them up the best you can. Notify the authorities if she wants to and let them hurt her again while they gather evidence that won't serve a damn purpose. Nobody up top really cares about girl from the slums.

Vincent was the first one to move. He put his cloak over her. It was easier when I did not have to look at her. Cloud began to shake so Vincent took her from him and began walking inside. Cloud fell to the deck as soon as his hands were free. I would have stayed with him, but she needed me more.

Vincent carried her to the room we had set aside for her. It was right between mine and Yuffie's. We thought it would be nice, when we got her back. It would be just us girls in that corner of the ship and we could laugh and joke like we used to. We can't laugh now. I don't know if we ever will again.

She didn't even twitch as Vincent set her down on the bed. He said something about telling the pilot to get to the nearest town for a doctor as he left the room. I had materia with me so I used it. It didn't do much that I could see but the awful rattling sound stopped. I thought for a second that I might have done something wrong and killed her but she still had a pulse when I felt her neck.

Even with her body covered I could barely stand to look at her. Her face was swollen and purple. Her hair was matted with blood. I know you're not supposed to wash the…the victim. The evidence has to be gathered by someone who's trained to do it. But we know who did it and he's already dead.

I hope Cloud made him suffer for this.

I got a sponge and a basin of warm water from the bathroom and started to wipe the blood off her face. I had to refill the bowl a lot. The water turned red so fast. I was afraid to open the cloak but I did it anyway. I couldn't let her stay like that.

There was some ragged cloth binding her wrists together. It was dirty but it might have been pink once. It was probably all that was left of her clothes. I tried to get it off her quickly but my hands kept shaking. I threw it on the floor when I finally got it off. I wanted to burn it. Looking at it made me feel sick.

I was still sponging her clean when the doctor came in. He yelled at me for what I was doing, but Barret put a hand on his shoulder and told him it made no difference. I stepped back to let the man do his work.

He was such an ass about it. He just snapped his gloves on and poked and prodded. Doctors can be so cold. It's true none of us could have given her the stitches she needed, or bound her broken bones so well, but he never even asked her name. He worked on her like she was so much meat. He didn't care that she had friends who had spent weeks looking for her and worrying about her. He didn't care that she was a lovely person.

I guess she didn't really look lovely at that point.

I stayed the whole time the doctor worked. I kept my eyes on her face. I didn't want to see what the doctor was doing but at least he didn't ask me to leave. Nobody else had come in and I wanted her to have someone there who cared about her.

The doctor was mumbling something about her being stable when she finally woke up. She opened the eye that wasn't swollen shut and looked right at me for just a second.

There's really no appropriate thing to say in this kind of situation. All I could say was her name.

She didn't move. She didn't blink. She didn't even try to speak. In fact, she didn't do anything at all.

That was when I realized that she wasn't really there anymore.


	4. Cid

**Cid**

I walked onto this command deck two days ago and I'm not leaving it for anything less than another big fireball. There's things that need doing and places we have to be. I'm just telling these pilot boys where to go. It's my fucking job, dammit.

It doesn't matter that they were already gunning the Highwind away from the fireworks at the crater when I got in here. They're not stupid. They know their job. First thing was to get the hell away from that fancy lightning and they were doing that. It's good that they know what to do without being told. I fucking trained 'em and I don't baby nobody so they had damn well better know.

Of course, I had to tell them to set down somewhere safe as soon as possible. They hadn't been outside when Spike came in. How the hell would they have known we needed a goddamned doctor in the house? I told them to land somewhere safe so we could get one. I didn't tell 'em why. Wasn't none of their fucking business.

Vincent came back from wherever he put her a few minutes later but I didn't need nobody to tell me we needed to get her some help. Hell, I saw those marks on her. I saw where all that blood was coming from. I didn't have to look too long to know. A crazy man steals a pretty girl away and well, it's a fucking bad story. Can't say it really surprised me. Still, up till that point when I saw her, it was easy to pretend that things might still turn out okay. Life's just shitty like that though. It'll never miss a chance to screw you, even if you know how and when and you see it coming a hundred miles away.

We got a doctor at Costa del Sol. It was one of the places far enough from all the fire and lightning for landing. Things were still pretty shook up around there. None of the damn medics wanted to leave the local injury line.

Bastards.

I kept trying to tell 'em we had a real situation. A girl was lying in a bed bleeding, probably to death for all I know, and they want to stick around to tape plasters on every idiot who couldn't get out of the way of a falling rock.

I guess it was a good thing Vincent came along. I didn't know what good he would be, knowing how fucking quiet he is, but all my talking wasn't doing a damned bit of good. I learned my lesson though. Never underestimate a man with a claw. So we got our doctor and Vincent led him down to the room. I told Cloud that we got help but he didn't look like he was going to move from the railing. I gave up waiting for him and came back up here.

The deck's real quiet. Nobody's talking like they usually are. I didn't say a thing, but word got around anyway, I figure.

This is where I belong. Not a damn bit of good I can do down there. There's enough work here to do. This is where I belong, dammit. Up here to pilot this baby wherever we need to go. I'm needed here and this is where I'll be. Everybody else has the same fucking idea. Tifa's staying down in the bedroom. Vincent's running back and forth to get things done. The kid and the cats are staying out of the way for the most part. Even Spike came in eventually. It works out. Everybody does what they gotta fucking do without getting in anybody else's way.

I sure as hell don't envy Barret though. See, he got it into his head that it was his duty to tell her mother. Cait Sith, Reeve, whatever the hell you want to call him, he managed to track down where the Turks had stashed the old lady in the melee, so we stopped at Kalm to deliver the news. Well, Barret did anyway. I just went out to scrounge some smokes while he did what he had to do.

Just my luck I passed him on my way back to the ship. He was talking to this woman in a small fenced-off yard. They were too far away for me to hear anything but I figured she was the mother when she started screaming and beating him on the chest. I thought about jumping in there to yank her off him, but he just stood there, taking it all.

I walked away. It wasn't my place to interfere. My place is here, steering the damned ship. I wish I'd grabbed more cigarettes when I had the chance. I could really fucking use them right about now.

Vincent came up a minute ago. Told me they brought the mother on board to see her. I guess that would explain all that god-awful wailing I heard a while back. I'm not going down there. That's one mess I don't need to be in.

We still need to find a hospital, one that's not overflowing with Meteor and Lifestream injuries. The doctor said she'll need more intense care than we can give her on the ship. I wouldn't know first hand. I haven't been down there. I haven't seen her since Vincent first took her inside. He says she's waking up every now and then. She seems to be doing okay for now. It's her mother who's falling apart. In any case, I'm up here now and we're flying all around so we can find a place with room for her.

It's sickening in a way. I once promised her a ride on the airship. I didn't think it would turn out like this. I kinda want to go down there and apologize for it. It's not my fault though. Not hers either. But I can't go down there.

Shit, I wish I hadn't finished my smokes so quickly. We're running out of places to go to. If we don't find someplace, we're just going to have to park up somewhere and wait till something clears up. I hate waiting, dammit. I can't just sit and wait here. Not now.

Yeah, so I'm trying to stay up here. I seen her once when Cloud brought her on board. I don't need to fucking see that again. Shit. I can't go down there. I don't want to have to look at her like that again. I know it's stupid but I just fucking can't. All it would take is one more look at her and Tifa and Cloud and the old lady bawling her eyes out and I'd probably be doing the same damn thing. I'd be fucking useless. So I'm staying away and doing what I can for her from here.

And I feel like shit for it being so little.

Because that girl down there, she's survived something terrible, don't ask me how, and here I am, too goddamned chicken to even look in on her.

You don't need to tell me I'm a fucking coward. I already know.


	5. Barret

**Voices**

**Barret**

It ain't right. It just ain't right, I'm telling you. It ain't right and it ain't fair.

Nobody deserves what she been through and her least of all. You think people like her come along everyday? Not in Midgar, I'll tell you that much. In Midgar, people'll cut you soon as look at you. Ain't nobody goes round with a smile for just anyone. Nobody but her got a smile and a 'hello' for a total stranger.

Now don't gimme dat look. You know which look. It ain't like that. She's too young. I'm too old. It weren't ever that way so get your mind out of the gutter. You make me sick, thinking like that at a time like this. She's a real sweet girl is all. Kind of what I hope Marlene will turn out like.

You have any idea what that girl gave up? Not for me so much as Marlene, still, but damn, I owe her. She put herself on the line and carried through for a child she didn't even know. People like that don't come along everyday and that's whether you're in Midgar or out of it. Damn.

I owed her then and I owe her now. I'm the one that dragged her into this mess. If it weren't for her giving up her freedom for Marlene and getting tangled up in all this shit, she'd probably be somewhere in Midgar healing all the people who got hurt by the Meteor, maybe bringing flowers to the bedside just to cheer 'em up.

Instead she's lying in a hospital needing healing herself. She hasn't been doing much more than that these past couple of weeks. She's getting the best care money can buy, courtesy what's left of Shinra Inc. Reeve's seeing to that. Even if he weren't I woulda dragged out my stash and held everybody else up at gunpoint if they didn't want to chip in. Not that they would refuse, mind you. We come too far in this to get petty now.

It took us damned long enough to find a hospital that would take her. We had to make the rounds all the way up past the flames and into Wutai eventually. Yuffie surprised me. The doctors were sending us away but that skinny little brat stormed in and pulled some royal rank or something. Yuffie…well, she's alright, even if she's kinda delinquent on account of having no mother.

I hope Marlene don't go that road. It hasn't been easy taking care of her these past couple of weeks. Sweet thing, she was so happy to see me after so long. She couldn't understand why I looked so sad, or why Auntie Elmyra was crying.

Elmyra's just at the point of being civil to me again. I guess she got more to think about now than beating the bearer of bad news. I don't hold it 'gainst her. She had to be told and I had to do the telling. Who else was going to do it? Cloud was a mess. Tifa was acting nurse. Elmyra didn't even know the rest of them. And after how she took Marlene in, I owed it to her to tell her to her face.

Didn't make it any easier though. How do you go up to somebody who's taken in your little girl and treated her like their own kin, then tell them something about their own child? It's not easy. It can't be. To go up to somebody and tell them their daughter's been hurt like that? You think anybody takes that news well? I didn't mind when the fists started flailing or when she started to scream at me. It was easier to take that than think about how sick I felt about the whole thing.

I brought Marlene on board the ship the same time I brought Elmyra, but I didn't let my baby girl go down to where all the commotion was. There's some things a child's just not meant to see. She kept asking me where the flower lady was, though. That's the thing with kids. You try to hide it, but they always when know something's up.

I told her the flower lady was real sick and that we had to find a hospital that was good enough to take care of her. That was why Auntie Elmyra was mad at Daddy. Marlene's young yet. That was enough of the details for a while.

We're all staying in Wutai for the time being. Funny how we all agreed to it without ever talking about it. We're in this together, till the girl's out of the woods. We'll see where to go from there.

I go to visit everyday at the hospital. I don't bring Marlene with me just yet. It's too soon and things are still too awkward. Elmyra's always in there. If she's not crying, she looks like she just finished crying, or else she's going to start crying. I see Cloud in the hall sometimes. He just sits outside and stares at the floor. Tifa stays by the bedside with Elmyra most times I've been there. The others come and go like me. There's not much we can do other than check in to see how things are going.

They're not going too well either. Oh she's doing alright, physically. Bones healing, bruises fading, that kind of thing. She's awake for hours at a time now. But it's like she's not really there. Tifa told me something to that effect early on, but it took me a while to see what it was. She doesn't talk to anybody, not even her own mother. She looks at us like she ain't ever seen us before. I tried to say something to her the first couple of times I went. She just looked right through me the whole time, like she was staring at the wall behind my head. Then she turned away to look at the other wall.

The first look at her was pretty bad but it was right then, in that hospital, that it hit me how bad it was. She's not in her own head anymore and she might not come back. You have any idea how much that hurts? Looking at her like that makes me just want to sink straight through the floor. She's gone from being what she was to this thing that just lies in bed, not understanding a damn thing around her. Is that fair? Tell me, for somebody who would do what she did for everybody around her, is that fair?

My visits are getting shorter and shorter these days. Mostly I feel like I'm just dropping in to see if she's said anything yet. I keep going, because I got to be there for her. We all got to be there for her, even if she don't recognize us anymore. Each day I go, hoping and praying for a change, that maybe this time there'll be that spark in the eye and she might say 'hello' or something. Each day I'm disappointed and I can't stand to stay much longer.

It hasn't been long though. There's plenty of time for her to come around yet. Who know with these things? They're guided by something mightier than us. We just gotta do the best we can. I hope for Elmyra's sake at least, it doesn't take forever.

Marlene keeps asking to come with me. I don't let her. I keep telling her I'll take her later, or the doctor said only one person at a time or something. that doesn't stop her from doing something though. Everyday she picks a bunch of raggedy old wildflowers for me to take to the hospital. She looks so happy when she's out there in the grass, enjoying the sun. I don't know that it would be good for the child to see her friend the way she is.

Marlene's no fool though. Can you believe she actually asked me what was wrong? Now what the hell am I supposed to say to that? Children understand things like measles and shit, but this is something else entirely. How am I supposed to look this sweet, happy little girl in the eye and tell her that the world is an ugly, ugly place full of ugly people who don't care for anything but hurting others as bad as they can? And that it don't matter how good you are because bad things can still happen to you, just like they did to a sweet slum girl who grew flowers and had a heart as big as the ocean?

There's something wrong with a world like this and I'd fix it if I knew how. Because it just ain't right. It just ain't fair.


	6. Elmyra

**Voices**

**Elmyra**

That thing they brought back to me is not my daughter.

It's not her, I'm telling you. It looks like her but it's not her. She's gone and she'll never come back.

I should get over it, shouldn't I? I haven't lost a daughter. She never was my daughter. I got a child without the pain of childbirth. I took in a war orphan. I pulled a little girl from the body of her dead mother.

Easy come, easy go.

That's what those nosy neighbors of mine might say, assuming they're still alive. The Midgar slums never were a center of tact and decent behavior. Other women in the neighborhood made such a big deal of how I got my daughter, as if it made me less of a mother.

Idiots.

If suffering is what it takes to be a mother, I've borne my share. I tried to have a child. I tried so hard, but I just wasn't meant to bear my own. All the days and weeks I prayed and longed for a child, only to be disappointed, month after month. Then with my husband gone to fight, no chance for even trying. I had begun to accept. I was giving up.

Then I found this woman, dying on the steps. She was pale and thin and bleeding, but Gods, she must have been a beauty once, the kind that makes other woman bitter and spiteful from jealousy. I know I felt a little of it when I saw her, even though her breath was rattling and she was clearly near the end. And worse, this worn out, broken thing had a child! She had a child and she was weak and dying and I was alive and well and had none.

She looked at me. I don't know what she saw. I almost turned away but I thought better of it. I went closer to hear what she had to say.

And she gave me her child.

Just like that.

She gave up her own flesh and blood and died.

There were days I wondered what they could have been through together, the two of them, that would bring a woman so low.

I took that little girl home with me. She was a very happy child. Did I ever tell you that? She was cheerful, in a quiet, singular way. She always had a little bit of sadness in her. I suppose that was because of how I found her, and how different she was from the other children. That would be enough to crush anyone, but she was a brave little thing. She would put a sweet smile on and tell me that it was okay, that everything had to return to the Planet one day.

She told me a lot about the Planet over the years. She loved to talk about everything. About how nothing really died. How we all return to the Planet.

She never told me it was possible for someone to return to the Planet and leave a breathing body behind.

You don't know what it's like. You can't know. You have no idea how much I wanted her and even though she wasn't my blood, she was _mine_. My baby! Day after day, taking care of her, night after night, praying for her. All those years of watching and looking out and teaching her how to be careful, of dodging the Turks and the perverts who preyed on young girls. I even scraped together enough to get her a cheap staff so she would have some form of defense out there in the slums.

But she was never afraid. No, she was never afraid. She was sure she could handle anything that came her way. Being what she was, though, I suppose it was inevitable she would get mixed up in something crazy eventually.

And now she's gone and not coming back.

It took a while to sink in, what Mr. Wallace told me. He didn't go into all the details. He didn't have to. He just told me what was necessary, that she had been kidnapped. And held for days by the one responsible for those meteors. I knew that couldn't be good. It hadn't quite sunk in then, you see. It was when he told me she needed extensive medical care that I just knew. Oh god, anybody with a daughter knows what that means.

I don't remember things too clearly after that. He took me on board the ship. I remember the first sight of her. Just a quick flash. That was all I was able to stand. She looked shattered. Like her mother. I looked away quickly. I remember thinking that there was a lot of noise around. I didn't realize till later that it was all coming from me.

They treated the cuts and bruises on my hands at the hospital. It seems I'd been banging on the walls and the floor. They say I tried to strangle that Cloud boy, but I don't remember it and he won't speak about it.

She looked better when the doctors finished with her. All cleaned up and bandaged and covered. It would have been easy to pretend that she had just been in an accident of some sort.

Except that I _knew_ what that bastard had done to her. And there was no way I could have protected her from him. What good are prayers and a staff against somebody who can bring fire from the sky? My poor girl. She never had a chance.

All I could do was sit by her side and wait for her to wake up. I mean really wake up. Her eyes were open. She was moving a bit. She would eat when she was fed and she could signal for help when she needed to get up.

But she wasn't really there. She didn't speak. For a while I thought maybe that beast had damaged her vocal cords. Then I realized he'd damaged her mind.

The others, her friends, they would come in and talk to her for a while each day. We all thought it would do some good. The doctors agreed.

It didn't do anything.

She just stared at them. I could hardly stand to look at her when she was awake like that. The look in her eyes was the same one I'd seen in her mother's just as the final breath left.

It's a horrible thing, watching someone die. That point when they take the first step away from the world and are turning away from the rest of us. And now my little girl is stuck in that moment.

The weeks went by and she began to move more, but there was still no sign that she would come back to us. Her friends took care of all the details, as if doing what they can for her now can somehow fix everything or make all of this go away.

I shouldn't blame them. I shouldn't have blamed Mr. Wallace. I really lit into him, I heard someone say. He never said anything about it to me. I wish I had the nerve to look him in the eye and apologize.

They got us a house. We had to go somewhere when it was time for her to leave the hospital. They got us a little cottage in a field, not too far from town. There's no going back to Midgar for us. It's good here. There's fresh air and wildflowers aplenty. Maybe they thought it would be good for her.

She moves a bit more now. They think she's recovering. She's learned how to take care of herself again, fix her hair, brush her teeth. It's much easier to look at her now that the bruises have mostly healed. She still walks slowly though, when she moves about the house and through the meadows. She listens when I speak and she seems to understand. She comes in when I call her for dinner, usually with an armful of flowers. I'm running out of vases to put the things in, but I can't bear to say 'no' to her, even to this empty shell that resembles my daughter. All I'd have to do is say the word and she would stop.

This is not my daughter.

Oh, she was never a disobedient child. Don't misunderstand me. She was just…willful. And a little stubborn. And very spirited. She caused me enough grief with her wild ways but she was never wayward. Even when she made me shriek, I enjoyed her strength deep down. I curse myself if I ever wished she was more docile, even if her sense of self set her on the path that led to this.

No. No, that's not right. I can't blame who and what she was for this any more than I can blame Cloud Strife or Mr. Wallace, or his own dear child. This is nobody's fault. Nobody can predict where their lives are going to take them. It's just an unfortunate result of circumstance. Like what left a woman dying on the steps of a train station with no choice but to give her child away. I hope that woman does not think too badly of me now. I failed her trust. She gave her life for her child's safety. I hope she knows I would have given mine if I had known, if I had been there.

They come to visit her sometimes, her friends. Cloud Strife mostly. He never says much. He just sits there and stares at her and she seems happy enough to sit with him. He usually brings her a little gift, something small, like a new ribbon or a little sparkly pendant. Lately it's been glass vases. At least it's practical.

There's another who visits often. The very strange one, Vincent. He puts me on edge a bit, him and his claw. He doesn't bring her anything, but he talks all the time. He seems like the type to talk a lot only to someone who won't answer. I don't know what he's saying to her. He always grows quiet when I get closer. He means no harm, I suppose. At the end of every visit he reports to me that she's said nothing. Poor fool. After all this time, he's still trying.

That's how it has been in the weeks since we entered our new home. The meadow is bright. The days are long and warm. And life has never been so dreary.

There's no sunshine that can brighten my home now that my girl is gone. And she won't come back. She won't. There's no point in hanging onto hope. It's a dangerous, disappointing thing. I've begun to accept, you see. I'm giving up.

Or at least I was.

Because yesterday, at dinner, she looked right at me with a sharp focus I never thought I'd see again. And she said, "Thank you, Mom."

She sank right back into herself after that. She has not said a word since.

I am ashamed. The first thing I felt wasn't joy and hope and exhilaration. Instead of running to the phone to report a miracle, I just sat there and watched that little piece of her fall further away. I was scared by what I thought.

I hoped she would fall faster and fade away altogether. That's a horrible thing to think, isn't it? But you see, I don't know how good it would be for her to wake up. I'm not sure if I want her to return, to have to face this broken life. This…existence might be hollow, but at least she's at peace. She's been through enough. I don't want her to suffer anymore.

It's a mother's wish.


	7. Vincent

**Disclaimer: **Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix. No profit is sought from this work.

**Voices**

**Vincent**

I have seen this all before.

A woman hurt, her life in tatters.

I stood by before. I let it happen. I reasoned that is was her own decision. By the time I saw what harm was being done, it was too late.

All those years in the dark it haunted me that I left a beautiful, fragile woman in the hands of a madman. That I let him use her and abuse her. That her pain continued long after he was done with her. I saw it over and over in dreams that left me clawing at the silk lining of my prison.

I saw again the moments of my failure, when I let her go for the sake of her own misguided happiness instead of fighting for my own, when I watched her walk the path of her destruction and said not a word. I watched again and again and pined for the chance to change things. I writhed and shrieked and screamed inside that dark pine box till nothing was left of me but a silent husk of the man I once was. It is a particular torment, to watch, always watch and never act when you knew you could. Death would be a kinder path and I would have chosen it if the choice had been mine to make.

Many times I swore as I lay in the darkness that I would never stand by and let such a thing happen again. That I would stop things as soon as I could, that I would keep her from hurting herself. That if circumstances ever conspired to pull a bright spirit beneath dark waters again, I would reach in and pull her out. Empty promises, while one lies in a casket far beneath the reach of daylight.

When Cloud stepped onto the deck of the airship with his battered burden, I moved without thinking. There was no need for thought. The lost hope of what I wish I had done before is burned deep into my soul.

I moved before the others could breathe and have kept moving since. Someone had to and no one else could right then. It is not that I am cold. It is not that I do not care. True, I had seen pain like that before, the aching, bleeding, dying outcome of a woman badly misused, but familiarity does nothing to lessen the ache. I simply knew what needed to be done. How many years had I lain in the darkness, knowing what I should have done, could have done before?

I did not wish to have cause to act where before I had stood still. There can be no redemption for me if it comes at such cost to another. She is hurt. She hurts still and my older sin is magnified. My inaction haunts me, moreso now. It was my earlier complacence that allowed an abomination to be brought into this world, an abomination that visited a nightmare upon a helpless girl. Had I acted then, earlier, the gentle girl I came to know would not be in such a condition now.

I visited often and still do. I spoke to her constantly in the hopes of drawing her out. She had retreated far inside herself, to some safe, dark place that had since become her prison. I know well how a small prison can almost become a home. It protects you, cradles you even as it confines you and smothers you. I know the fear of facing the world outside, where even the weak light of a grey dawn can magnify all the ugliness of reality. But I came out and she had to as well, or so I thought. I spoke to let her know that it was safe outside now, that she did not have to hide.

One day, some brief weeks after her rescue, I saw lucidity slip over the horizon of her broken gaze. Her mother was hovering near the door when it happened. I did not turn, but I knew then that the woman had known and kept it hidden. What her reason was I will not presume to know. There was great pain in this for her too. Pain upon pain upon pain, for all of them, because once, long ago, I did nothing. One such as I has no right to judge.

So the wounded one can speak again, but she does it softly, slowly. She does most things this way now. We had thought it simply the result of her injuries. She was so badly hurt. There was no doubt that the wounds went deep, deeper even than could be seen with the eye. But she lived and because she did, I had hope that she would heal.

It seems I held onto that hope long after the rest let go of it. I refused to believe that she would be always mute and docile. Her bruises faded to leave her skin pale cream again. Her bones knitted and her limbs were straight and whole. Her scars faded to the faintest tracing of fine lines, visible only to those who knew how to look. What reason had I to believe that the rest of her would not heal as well? She lived when my own love had not. I knew she would heal. She had to. I had hoped that this time my actions would be enough.

Too little, too late, in the end. Or perhaps too much.

The girl is strong. I knew this. She returned to herself quite quickly once the first signs had begun. Mere days after the first time that she actually recognized me, she was fully lucid and disturbingly accepting of what had been done to her, knowing more about it than any of us. She brought herself back to this world when all the doctors and treatment could not. She returned knowing full well that the body she inhabits was broken and pieced together, that this life holds little but pain for her yet.

I saw then how mistaken I had been. Nothing changes. I am as wrong now as I ever was. Always, always, I am wrong. My life is a curse on all who know me. Everything I touch turns to ash.

Many times I've found myself staring at my hands. At the heavy metal claw that drew a red cloak over a bleeding girl. At the pale human hand that signed the register at the hospital. I acted then, because I knew the consequences of inaction. My hands moved almost without conscious direction. Now, when I look at them and think of it, their only move is to tremble slightly. We are frozen, my body and I. Inaction was deadly. Action was worse.

Death would be a blessing for her. Perhaps it was a blessing to my love, only I was too foolish to know it then. The flowergirl is too strong, too stubborn for her own good. She insists on continuing this way.

I tried at first to discourage her, but she would only take my human hand in both of hers and say she had her reasons. Now she bears my presence with a gentle smile. I saw a smile like that before. She is calm, even placid. She moves with a familiar, weighty grace that sends a chill right through me. It is her decision to live like this, to continue a life which allows her dead tormentor to hurt her still. I wish it were not so, for her sake, for mine, for the sake of all the world.

But it is her decision and though I loathe it, I must respect it. Much as I wish it were otherwise for her sake, I can control no life but my own. Perhaps if we had realized sooner how deep the damage went, we could have acted while her welfare was strictly up to us. It is not so now. She is herself again, or as like herself as she can ever be. She is a grown woman, as she has gently reminded me more than once with a tightness in her voice and a certain haunted look in her eyes. In this way, she reclaims herself. If this is what she needs, then so be it. I would be a greater monster if I tried to tear these shreds of autonomy from her.

So I must return to my penance.

I watch.

I wait.

I thought I knew hell while I lay in my casket. That was nothing compared to this. There, I knew what I would do if the opportunity arose. Now, I am frozen. There is a threat of darkness still in what she has chosen.

This, then, is hell. Knowing now the cost of both action and acceptance, should darkness come again, what will I do?


	8. Aerith

**Disclaimer:** Final Fantasy VII is the property of Square-Enix. No profit is sought from this work.

**Voices**

**Aerith**

Pain is a chasm. It is a deep, dark crack that swallowed me whole. It consumed me and in the end I couldn't have crawled out if I tried. I was trapped in darkness, in cold, barren earth and I didn't know which way was out. It was left to others to reach in, so many hands reaching down into the darkness to find me and pull me up.

Pain is a gaping pit that stole a part of my life. I try not to think too much about it. I try to move forward. I try not to look back. Every day takes me a small step further away. The crack in the ground that would have devoured all of me looks a little smaller, day by day. It's too soon to speak of it being out of sight. I try not to think about it. I must not turn around.

I can still feel it lying behind me. Something so large will not be ignored. It makes its presence known in little ways, like wind whistling up through the void, daring me to turn around and face it. I will not turn around.

It's been a year now. Maybe that's why the urge to sit still and examine it all is reaching around me, tightening its grip like his arms around my waist, pulling me away from my life.

I have no exact date to speak of. There were many days. Maybe that's why it haunts me like this now. It's not one moment come and gone and easily forgotten, but many, stretching far and wide, like cracks in dry, barren, rocky earth, forever underfoot, waiting to open up and swallow me again.

I shouldn't think of that. Not now. I can't afford to. Many hands reached back to pull me out of the pit, but it's up to me to keep from falling back in. I can't afford to slip, not now, not ever.

The house is warm and the fields are green. This is how I remind myself that it is over, that I'm not in that hole, deep in the earth. I once thought that hole would be my grave. I was willing to let it. I didn't have the strength to climb out, afterwards. There was nothing to do but die. I wanted it. I wanted death.

And that would be a sin for a Cetra, under ordinary circumstances. We are creatures of life. But the Planet understood and forgave and was even willing that it be so. It never wanted its children to suffer.

He was rough. Brutal. I fought, don't think I didn't, but what could I do against someone like him? It hurt so much. It comes back to me sometimes, on nights like this one. I remember his voice mocking my screams because there was no one to hear me. I remember his hands tightening like a vice, or curled into fists. I remember his eyes even though I couldn't stand to look at them too long. They were slitted, like a cat's. Many times in that crater, I felt like a mouse, something he would toy with endlessly before he killed.

When he got tired of my attempts to escape, he broke my thighs. I feel it again in my sleep sometimes. It never fails to wake me. It's so hard to shut the sound out, to toss it far behind me where I don't try to look. The memory creeps up and I can feel his hands on me again.

The house is warm and the fields are green out there under the moon. Why do I feel so cold? It's on nights like this, when my dreams are full of ghosts from that cavern that I'm afraid everything will fail, that I'll slip and fall and never get up again.

But I can't afford to fall. Mom would be sad, for one. She's always so sad now and she won't tell me why. Cloud would be hurt too, and Tifa. I owe them all for reaching down to pull me out, even if I had been halfway to the other side by then and happy to go.

Tifa hugged me when I came to, the first time I said her name. I flinched a little but she didn't seem to feel it. I'm glad she didn't or else she might have let go. Her hug was full of warmth and I needed that. It's something to think about on cold, dark nights when I can feel unwelcome hands I know aren't there reaching into my hair again.

Cloud didn't hug me, not immediately, and when he finally did, he was trembling. He's still afraid to touch me. When he visits, he sits and watches me like I'm made of glass. The others are much the same, but none of them wear the pain so naked as Cloud. I wish he didn't hurt so badly. There are echoes rising out of the dark sometimes, a deep voice gloating over my pain because it would hurt the puppet. I don't want anyone to hurt. It's touching to be treated with such care after everything, but I don't need anyone to hurt for me. I've done more than enough of that myself. This pain is mine, not theirs.

I was so close to giving in, after he cut me and left me bleeding. I heard the Planet crying for me. Usually it cried for itself, for its own pain, not mine. It was hurt, its life being drained away, just as mine was, so just then it cried for me. I drifted away to the warm hurting heart of it and it welcomed me home. It promised me that I would never hurt again. I wanted that. I had nothing to return to but a broken body and a swordsman who was not done toying with me yet. The Planet took me in, far away from everything and I almost stayed.

Sometimes, when the dreams are too much and the nights are too cold, I wonder what it would have been like if I had let this life go. It would have been so easy to stay near that enveloping warmth and forget ever having a mortal body, to let it wither and die on a hospital bed. I would have become separated from myself eventually, never mind how hard my friends were working to put me back together again.

I am here because I chose to be here. On nights like this, I try not to regret that decision.

The Planet cried for me, but it cried for itself as well. It offered me the chance to return to it, to be one with it, just to soothe my pain. I wanted to take that offer. I wanted to forget. But I am still a Cetra and I couldn't ignore the Planet's pain. My death would have left the Planet alone, with no sentient tie to the living, no one on this side to talk to. The long ages would roll by and it would circle the sun with no companion or guardian to tend it. Deep inside, where it thought I could not see, it cried at the thought.

And yet it loved me enough to do that to take my pain away. I weighed its pain against my own in the slow, warm heart of the world. I could not be selfish. What's my one lifetime compared to eons of solitude?

So I came back. It was hard and it was slow. I had pulled so far away from everything by then. It would have been so easy to give up and let the inevitable come, but I'm still a Cetra and I have a duty to the Planet. It took care of me at my lowest hour and I must take care of it in return.

This life, it hurts sometimes. So much. I healed quickly, but the damage was severe. There may be only a few faint scars but the pain went deep. I will walk in pain all my life. But I can function and that is enough. There's more than just my life that matters now. I will not leave the Planet lonely.

My friends have not forgotten me. They hold me up. They are my net. If I stumble, they will not let me fall, but even after all they've done, they cannot help me with my Cetra's duty. It's not their burden to bear and they can't understand it. A few even tried to convince me to abandon it, to erase all the pain. But I can't. For duty, if nothing else. Sometimes, on nights like this, I think perhaps I made a mistake to commit to this life, but it would be so unfair to all concerned, after coming this far.

I have to keep moving, day by day, step by step, till that gaping hole in my life is out of sight. Maybe then I'll be able to look back without these tears.

That day's not here yet, though, not yet. Not when I wake in the middle of the night with the feel of his breath on my neck, when I have to keep rubbing my wrists to be sure they're not bound, when I keep swallowing a phantom taste in my mouth or I have to keep staring at whatever's in front of me to be sure I'm not deep underground. That day isn't here if I can see his booted feet beside my head, if I wake in the darkness still hearing his voice, if I can still feel him on me and inside me and the way the rough floor grated against my back as he moved.

That day isn't here yet, if there are still nights that leave me like this, struggling to look away from that darkness, shaking and crying beside the cradle. I can't even bear to touch the one in it on nights like this, when the moon reflects so brightly off his silver hair. I can only whisper to him that everything is going to be all right, don't be sad, don't cry, even though I'm the one with tears running down my face.

No one really understood how the doctors could have missed it. There were none of the signs people usually look for. My half-Cetra body is a mystery. It was months before anyone realized and I had awoken enough by then to stop them, for duty. I will not leave the Planet alone. He saw to that.

It saddens them that I chose this but they don't understand. It drove Cloud and Mom to fresh tears and stunned the rest to silence. It is hard not to look back at the void when I've brought a living reminder out of it with me. Mom tries her best but sometimes I think it is too much for her. More than once, I've seen her standing over the crib with a pillow in her hands, maybe just fluffing it. Maybe not.

My friends are still unsure how to deal with my child.

With his child.

Cloud stares. Tifa sighs. Cid stays outside and smokes. He says he doesn't want to smoke around a baby.

Marlene is happy though. She doesn't understand yet. She's cheerful and happy to see him. She plays with him while her father watches. She makes my baby laugh. I'm glad someone does. It's hard for me sometimes.

Vincent tried the longest and the hardest to make me change my mind, when there was still time. He meant well, I suppose, but I wouldn't presume to make this choice for anyone else and I could not let anyone choose for me. Vincent was pained at my decision. I can't imagine what he feels, thinking he could have stopped this from happening. I can't think of anyone's pain but my own.

I do the best I can. There are times when I am afraid it's not enough. It's hard to be warm sometimes, when I look at my child and see his face. I keep telling myself that it's not fair to the little one, that it wasn't his fault.

It's not his fault his hair is that shade of pale. It's not his fault that when I try to nurse him I have to keep reminding myself that I'm not being bitten and clawed. It's not his fault that on nights like this, when I'm rocking myself back to sleep beside the cradle, I keep praying he won't wake up and see me like this, because I wouldn't be able to stand having those eyes on me again, glowing at me through the darkness. It's not his fault. He's not to blame. He's a baby and he needs love just as much as any other child.

But I have no love to give him.

I did this for duty. The love I had when I chose this was for the Planet, not him.

And this is not fair.

There is a rift there that I can't heal yet, but this is what I've chosen, for better or worse. A Cetra's responsibility to the Planet and a mother's duty to her child. Perhaps one day duty will eventually become love. The best I can do for now is shield him from the pain, from the dark and the cold, so that he grows straight and warm and knows something other than causing others pain.

My son will not become his father.

The pain will end with me.

**END**


End file.
